Among the scientists at OFS Denmark is Bera Palsdottir, whose expertise helps guide many advances in specialty fibers and amplifiers.
Based in Brøndby, near Copenhagen, Dr. Palsdottir was recently appointed manager for a group working on commercializing new specialty fibers and fiber components. In addition to this new assignment, Palsdottir continues to serve as project manager for development of discrete Raman amplifiers and development of air-clad fibers. And she is technical manager for erbium doped fiber.
“Our challenge is to have the best products in the world, which at the same time are consistent and easy to use in our customers’ production systems,” Palsdottir notes. “As a result, we 
need to understand not only the technical requirements of the fiber and the amplifiers, but also how the fiber can be designed and specified to yield the same performance every time.”
This challenge means that OFS Denmark often facilitates the transfer of new technologies from the laboratory to the field. To cite one example, Palsdottir is involved in ongoing work on erbium doped air-clad fibers. “We believe that the bandwidth requirements will increase in the coming years. We are working on erbium doped air-clad fibers for high-power, broadband EDFAs, taking advantage of cost effective, multimode pump diodes. This fiber is based on an invention from OFS labs, so we are transferring their research to a product.”
In the area of Raman amplifiers, OFS is developing amplifiers with simultaneous dispersion compensation and amplification for extremely broad bandwidth. “Another application we are studying for dispersion compensating Raman amplifiers is where the dynamic range of EDFAs is increased by using Raman amplification in dispersion compensating modules,” Palsdottir says.
According to Palsdottir, the Denmark facility contributes to the overall OFS presence in the industry through a wide variety of fibers and applications. “We manufacture a range of fibers that can be characterized as niche products, even though the volumes of the product vary from a few to hundreds of millions of meters per year,” she explains. “We are flexible and need to be able to produce erbium fiber, highly nonlinear fibers, TrueWave® fiber, and submarine fibers on the same production equipment during the same week.”
Palsdottir has a B.Sc in physics from the University of Iceland, a Masters in physics from the University of Copenhagen, and a PhD from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. She joined Lycom in 1991 (at the time a joint venture between AT&T and NKT), which is now a part of OFS.
The atmosphere of innovation that pervades the Denmark facility clearly suits Palsdottir. “In my job I have an opportunity to constantly learn about new technology and applications. I meet and collaborate with people to create solutions to improve their products and develop new ones,” she says.
